Poetry in British Sign Language and English

HSBC – Here, they Say, Be Clowns

Breaking news – HSBC have finally sent me a proper letter, as opposed to “we are still investigating your claims. Thank you for your patience”, of which I now have three. No, this was a proper letter, that pretty much agreed with everything I said in my complaint (and in my response to their paltry offer of £15 in compensation for completely winding me up so much it took me two hours to calm down) and said how sorry they were, that their service had fallen below standards, and that steps had been taken so that it wouldn’t happen again. Etc. Etc.

It also offered me a slightly improved offer of compensation, though not by much, and certainly nowhere near the fee that the Financial Ombudsman would charge HSBC were I to take my complaint to them (that’s right HSBC, I know how much. When I said I’d taken legal advice, did you think I was bluffing?), and frankly I’m minded to go to the Financial Ombudsman out of spite.

Except the letter also mentions ‘a gift’ to help make up for the all the inconvenience. Ooh, a gift, as well as a small cheque? Oh HSBC, you are too generous. Whatever could it be? An iPad 2? I can dream.

The letter then asks me to call between Mon – Thurs between 9am – 2pm in order to discuss this mysterious gift. So I called them at 11.30 this morning. It’s wednesday. I had my notes with me, and was ready for some negotiating. Only to be told the person who wrote the letter is away from the office, and won’t be back til Friday.

There’s a point at which one has to recognise the ridiculousness of the situation and laugh.

I told HSBC that I’m deaf, and can’t take phone calls. What happened? The marketing dept phoned me, the credit card people phoned me (piss off, I paid it off for a reason) and the fraud detection people phoned me.

In frustration, I had them put a note on my file not to call me, ever. What happened? They called me again! Finally, I took my mobile number away from them altogether.

Then there was the ‘typetalk incident’ which sparked all this complaint business, and we know how that’s going. Verbal consent, my foot.

Their first response to my initial complaint was mis-spelled, vaguely patronising, ignored my references to the Equality Act and threats, and offered me £15 for the inconvenience. It poured petrol on the fire.

Then I went into a HSBC branch a few weeks ago to ask them to close my account and send the money to my new accounts at an internet bank, of which I had two. I told them how much I wanted to transfer to each account. What happened? All the money ended up in one account so I had nothing in my new current account. Ha ha. HSBC, you’re so funny.

Then this. Please call us between Mon – Thurs, and they’re not in til Fri. I’m not even angry or even that annoyed. I’ve simply reached a point where nothing that HSBC or its representatives does surprises me anymore. Hell, it makes me laugh. Frankly, I should probably just write a long missive, detailing everything HSBC has done to annoy me, all the way up to the present day, send it to the Financial Ombudsman and see how much they think it’s all worth. I bet it’s more than a small cheque and ‘a gift’.

Then again, perhaps I’m being unfair. I don’t know what this ‘gift’ is yet. I have until Friday to speculate. Please be an iPad 2. Please be an iPad 2…

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2 thoughts on “HSBC – Here, they Say, Be Clowns”

Was sent to your blog by a fellow deafie who rightly recognised you as someone who is possibly even better at kicking arse and taking names than I am about deaffail.

Didn’t you know banks and other organisations send their staff to special stupidity school so they can say the same old stupid crap to deaf customers. Although it was a Bastard Telecom rather than bank offshore callcentre employee who suggested I called the R.A.D and get an interpreter to talk to them – I still have the minicom printout somewhere because I was so confused and had to explain that no really I didn’t need a terp I needed them to answer my questions about textrelay billing systems (now I can’t prove HMRC were repeatedly disconnecting my calls in 2008 because BT didn’t bill me for any textrelay calls for that 6 month period!).

Natwest are just as bad as HSBC, I’m quite close to being able to close a business account with them – they refused to take a call by textrelay and wrote to me to tell me they were refusing my calls – and another letter on the same day grovelling about the first letter. I still have those letters, should scan them and stick them on the Internet somewhere. I have however never given them a phone number so they haven’t managed to call me cos I won’t accept incoming calls. They get 0000 000 0000!

Special stupidity school – I didn’t know about that, but it explains EVERYTHING.

My god, Natwest, that’s so illegal! Quote the Equality Act at them (I like Part 3, Section 29, subsection 1 for preference) and the Information Commissioner’s office, they’ve made public statements about verbal consent and typetalk. And by the sound of it, Natwest keep giving you ammunition – lock and load!

I was wavering, but the phone call (will update blog soon!) has hardened my resolve. FOS here I come 🙂